Homeless Men Don't Wear Pin-Stripe Suits
by TeaSipper
Summary: The Doctor pops in (Ok, so maybe he crashes in) on a young woman named Terri, but something's... off. Time seems to be in permanent flux on her college campus, with alien technology, and the aliens that come with it, constantly being dumped in by some unseen force. The weirdest part is, no one seems to notice.
1. Chapter 1

**Well, here we are again! Let's give this a proper go, shall we?**

 **I do not own any of the characters you actually recognize.**

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

This was not good.

In fact, you could say this whole situation was a bit extremely, very, very, _incredibly_ not good—considering he had planned on popping over to Barcelona (not the noseless-dog one, mind you), and ended up careening though a massive and very unfriendly vortex, the Doctor couldn't help but be just a teeny tiny bit disappointed. Perhaps disappointed was not the best word; panicked, however, was. Frantically, he pulled every lever, pressed every button he could find. Nothing. Nothing was working! He was so frustrated, he could scream.

The unhappy Time Lord raked his hands through his hair, clutching at his head in frustration as the TARDIS ricocheted off the walls of the time vortex. Every alarm was sounding, the console glowing a bright, foreboding red. Sparks were flying from every direction- generally not a good sign, seeing as it indicated a large number of things that were going very inexplicably wrong. Suddenly, the TARDIS crashed into the time vortex again, sending the Doctor flying backwards. He scrambled to his feet and gripped the controls.

"Come on, old girl," the Doctor looked pleadingly towards the flashing center column "tell me what's wrong. Tell me-"

Another crash—this time, sending the Doctor hurtling toward the front door. The _open_ front door.

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Theresa McLain rolled over to slam the snooze button on her alarm clock for the third time that morning but, unfortunately for her (but quite fortunately for her maintaining her daily schedule), she misjudged the width of her bed and went tumbling to the floor. She swore loudly, waking her roommate.

"Hey, Terri!" a strong Boston accent shot out from across the dorm room "just because you have to wake up at God-knows-when in the morning doesn't mean the rest of us have to." Linda grumbled and yanked the covers over her head. Theresa, or Terri, made a mental note to keep all further expletives in her head.

Until... "Shit!" 5:45. She was going to be late for her Chemistry lecture _again_. Launching into crisis-mode, she roughly pulled a hoodie over her pajamas, nearly choking on the mouthwash that was replacing her toothbrush for the morning. Textbook, I.D., notebook, and pencil in hand, Terri waded her way out of the messy dorm room while pulling on her black trainers.

She raced down the empty walkway that would lead her to the Science Hall. Making a quick turn, she glanced at the clock tower. _Yes! 5:55. I'll definitely make it by six._

And she would have- really, she would- if it hadn't been for the homeless man sprawled out in front of the library. Though, she wasn't sure most homeless people wore pin-stripe suits. She battled with her conscience for a bit, half intent on leaving him there in favor of being on-schedule for the first time this month, but lost in the end. Damn her conscience.

"Uhm... sir?" Her voice came out in a timid squeak. She cleared her throat, mentally cursing herself as the clock struck six. "Sir?"

A low groan answered her. The homeless man stirred.

 _Oh God. He's not well. What if it's pneumonia? What is he's hurt? I'm not a doctor! I'm not equipped for this! What if-_

Kathrine's frantic thoughts were cut off by a sharp intake of breath, followed by a loud "Whooo! Boy, was that a ride!" The man sat upright in a flash. "Now, what happened? Bumpy time vortex. Bit of a temporal rift above Barcelona, I'd say. Now if I could just get back to the TARDIS…" His eyes widened, he began shaking. Kathrine was at a loss. Who on Earth was this guy? _Barcelona? Time vortex? And what in the big, swirly universe is a TARDIS?_

The well-dressed homeless man let out a sound of what can only be described as complete and utter defeat. "I've lost the TARDIS..."

Terri wanted to cry. She was not prepared for this. Not only was she convinced this man was a raving lunatic, she was sure beyond a doubt that there was no way she could help him.

Completely ignoring the girl's internal thought-process, he stood up, spun around, and seemed to magically regain his composure. "You. What's your name? Never mind, no time." He rambled on before she could even respond. He strode over to her on his impossibly long legs. "I seem to be in a liiittle bit of a pinch. You see, I'm missing my box. My big, blue phone box. Happen to see one around here?"

"N-no. No, sir. Not that I can recall."

He mumbled "eh, was worth a shot," then turned back the now thoroughly confused college student. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

Surprised (not for the first time that morning), Terri shook the Doctor's hand. "Oh! What do you teach?"

"Just the Do- I beg your pardon?" The Doctor quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh, uh. Sorry. It's just that any 'doctors' on campus tend to be professors."

Realization dawned on the Doctor's face. "Oooh, a university! I went to Uni once. Not like this, mind you. It was more... on Pluto. But I digress. Blue box." He clapped his hands and began pacing down the walkway. "Can't be far away. Well, actually, it could be millions and trillions of years away or on another planet." a brief, uncomfortable pause "But I prefer to think it isn't, don't you?"

Terri found herself lamely nodding her head.

"Right. Good. Now," he pulled an odd-looking little tool out of the pocket of his tweed jacket "just need to scan for an artron energy signature." The tool whirred, a bright blue light emanating from the tip.

A minute passed. Terri's mood was far from improved as the Doctor's face grew more and more concerned. "What is it?" she managed to choke out.

The Doctor stared at the tool in his hands. "Looks like you've got leeches."

"Leeches?"

"Yup. Quite a lot of them, too. They're sort of jamming the signal on my sonic screwdriver. Can't detect artron with these buggers sucking up all the energy in sight." The Doctor slapped the screwdriver against his palm a few times and glared at it.

Kathrine blinked. "Uhm... Doctor," she felt odd using the term, but couldn't figure out what else to call this impossible man "I don't really follow. Do you mean to say that there are leeches on campus that... _eat_ energy directly, rather than obtaining it from, you know, blood?"

The Doctor spun on his heel to face her. "Oh, no! These aren't your run-of-the-mill hematophages; they latch onto a life form or another energy source and quite literally suck the energy straight out of them." He leaned in towards Kathrine and began muttering as he inspected her left arm "Symptoms include sleepiness, accelerated aging, somewhat unsightly hemorrhages-" the Doctor pinched at the air above her arm and lifted his hand toward his face. Terri watched, horrified, as the previously invisible leech phased into view in the Doctor's hand. "This one's been snacking on you for at least a month."

"Is that why I've been sleeping through Astronomy all month?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to chalk that up to general laziness." the Doctor grinned, but quickly sobered as the severity of the situation hit him. "I've never seen an infestation like this. At this rate, they'll flood every nook and crevice, sucking quanta out from under our noses. They'll keep eating and multiplying 'til the whole world- buildings, plants, people- 'til all of it's nothing but a dried-out husk."

Terri took a moment during the Doctor's monologue to regroup. _Invisible quantivorous leeches? Sonic screwdriver?_ This all sounded like those cheesy sci-fi shows she used to watch when she was little. All that was missing now was a space ship. "I need to lie down." she muttered before collapsing into an awkward heap at the Doctor's feet.

Terri awoke, groggy and slightly sore, to the sound of the Doctor throwing an entire library's worth of books over his shoulder, nearly hitting her in the process. She slowly got up to keep the swimming in her head to a minimum and looked around. The only things that registered in her clouded mind were the bookshelves, which were rapidly becoming empty.

"Ha ha!" There was that laughter again. "Oh, no. That is just too..." The Doctor, alerted by Terri's stirrings, looked away from his book and grinned at her. "Hello again!" He rushed over to her and scanned her with his sonic screwdriver. "Looks like everything's functional." Though he looked more troubled than his cheery tone implied, looking at the device in puzzlement.

"What have you done to the library?" Terri balked, taking in the destruction around her. He shrugged and put the device in his pocket, chalking the odd readings up to a temporary malfunction.

The Doctor spun on his heel, looking around as if he just noticed where he was. "Well, I was just looking for a map. I would have just used a computer, but your library's got no technology to speak of! What kind of university library doesn't have computers?"

"No… what?" Terri eyed the strange man. "Of course we don't have a computer in here! There's not near enough room." She rolled her eyes. "There's one in the Science Hall, in the basement, but you have to be faculty to get any punch cards."

"Punch car-" he stammered. "It's the year 2003, and you're still using punch cards?"

A power outage interrupted his interrogation. The leeches were getting out of hand. He blindly reached for Terri's hand, pulling her along after him.

What followed was a good deal of running (which, in all honesty, Terri was not in proper shape for). Every minute or so, the Doctor would pause in front of a building, consider it for a moment, shake his head and continue running.

Soon enough, Terri became more than a little fed up. "Alright, Doctor, what exactly are we looking for?"

"We need an energy source- a _big_ one- to lure in our quantivourous friends."

She stopped short, causing the Doctor to skid to a halt. "Football." she said, smirking.

"Look, I love a game as much as anyone else, but we have a bit of a crisis here!" he huffed.

Terri shook her head. "No, no. The 'Big Game' tonight. It's a huge deal on campus. Imagine every student gathered in a big stadium surrounded by huge, bright lights." She rolled her eyes "I can't believe I'm saying this; but these alien... quantum leechy-things won't be able to resist a feast like that."

The Doctor grabbed the poor girl and spun her around. "Brilliant! Where's the field?"

She smiled. Now it was her turn to drag him along.

Upon arriving at the field, the Doctor began running around, sonicking the massive light fixtures that surrounded the stadium. He then hurried up into the stands and turned his attention toward the speakers. "That ought to do it!" He turned to Terri, beaming. "I've maximized the output on every bit of equipment in this stadium. These leeches aren't exactly good at rationing their energy supply. They'll keep absorbing until they burst; which is exactly what we need to happen!"

Terri nodded, coming to terms with this outlandish situation, while the Doctor rambled on excitedly. "Right, so now we just wait until the game starts." She checked her watch. "Should take about... three hours."

The Doctor stopped short, a horrified look claiming his features. "Three hours?" he balked "What on Raxacoricofallapatorius are we supposed to do for _three hours?_ "

"Uhm..." Terri stammered, somewhat floored by the concept of entertaining this madman. Deciding that she couldn't properly take on a task of that caliber, she opted for her usual fall-back plan. "Who's up for tea?"

Much to her surprise, the Doctor grinned, and was more than willing to come to her dorm room for tea. _'I really could go for some chamomile. Do you have any bananas?'_ he'd said as she lead him up the stairs into her room.

 _Now for the hard part._ Terri timidly tapped on the door. A curly-haired, busty woman wearing a tight yellow t-shirt yanked the door open, grinning at them.

"Terri!" she chirped, pulling her roommate into a hug. The two smiled at each other for a second, then her attention was quickly drawn to the tall, smiling, undeniably attractive man in a VERY tight suit standing before her. "Well, hello there, handsome." She arched an eyebrow and smirked.

"Doctor, this is Linda. Linda, Doctor." Terri sighed, knowing what was coming next.

Linda gasped dramatically. "Oh, a doctor? Katie, you shouldn't have." She cooed as she dragged the both of them into the tiny dorm room. She winked at the Doctor, causing him to blush and rake a hand through his hair. She moved closer, inches away from his rapidly reddening face.

"Down, Linda." Terri put a restraining hand on her friend's shoulder, snickering lightly.

Linda laughed and shoved Terri playfully. "Oh, come on. You finally land a cute doctor and you won't even share? Or are you still holding out for your space-man?" The girls laughed harder.

"Er..." The Doctor cleared his throat, still blushing. "If you don't mind, ladies, I could really do with a cup of tea. Bit of a rough day."

Linda's jaw dropped. "He's _British!_ " she whispered, squeezing Terri's arm.

"Alright, alright. That's enough." Terri called behind her as she sifted through an old, battered cupboard and pulled out a box of chamomile, a hot pot, and several mismatched mugs. The others sat quietly while she bustled around the room, preparing the tea and searching for appropriate snacks. Minutes later, the trio was seated with a mug of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives.

"So, Terri," Linda broke the silence "how was Astronomy?"

Terri grumbled, running a hand through her short, dull brown hair. "No idea. Probably just as dull as usual."

Linda sighed. "Between missing Astronomy and arguing with your Physics professor, I feel like you might not graduate this year," she chuckled "and then you can be on the six-year plan, like me!"

"It's not my fault Professor Hughes doesn't understand that thinking of time in a linear perspective is a primitive and limited view that prevents us from advanci-"

"Woah, Mr. Spock. Spare us the time-travel lecture. You drove off my last boyfriend with that one." Linda interjected.

"No, no. I'm completely interested. Go on. We have time to kill, after all." The Doctor smirked a little at his wordplay.

Terri tried to pretend she wasn't completely ecstatic that someone was finally interested in her theory, but she quickly dropped the act and bounced in her chair so quickly as she spoke that she nearly spilled her tea. "Well, time is affected by physical means like gravity and position, right? So, the way I see it, it must be a physical substance—more or less. Even if it isn't, it's got to be an element of the coordinate plane. Either way, time _exists_! Like, not as we see it, not just something that passes us by; it's an actual thing that we're moving through, and it would have to exist with the past, present, and future happening all at once."

"Yes. It does exist. And you're doing a very good job of wasting it." Linda sighed.

The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Oh, you clever girl! Basic Omnipotent Time Theory. Mind you, that's just the basics; practically juvenile, but very good for a human. It's a bit tricky thought, isn't it? I mean, you have to account for alternate dimensions, time pockets, temporal rifts, turbulence. Then there's repeated temporal experiences and the time vortex. But, in theory, you've almost got it."

"Yeah, well, not really." The woman deflated. "I still can't explain time travel, per se. There would have to be some give, you know? Because, if someone could travel freely through time, they'd be able to alter it. But how would that work if all of time already exists?"

"Ah, it's all just sort of… Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey."

Linda groaned. "Oh, Lord, make it stop!" She slammed her head against her desk in mock-anguish. "The illusion is shattered."

The Doctor furrowed his brow and sipped at his tea. "The illusion?"

Terri laughed. "She thought you were hot until about ten seconds ago."

"The accent's great and all, but you're obviously a geek like Terri."

The younger geek laughed, while the Doctor managed to look offended, befuddled, and slightly amused. "Well, anyway, it's not like it matters." Terri laughed. "Even if I could figure out the rest of the theory, it's not like I'll be able to build a time machine or something."

Linda giggled. "Yeah, you'll just have to wait for your precious spaceman to sweep you off to the stars!"

Terri blushed. "Oh, come on, Linda, not today."

The Doctor quirked a brow and shot a glance at Terri, making her blush even harder. "Spaceman?"

"Yes! Oh my little Terri Bear told me, when we were very _very_ drunk one night at the bar down the street, that she always wished" she did a mocking impression of her friend "that she could 'find herself an alien—or a time traveler!—to take her away to the stars, and she'd never have to see this stupid town again.' Said she'd seduce them if she had to." With that, Linda threw a wink at the very embarrassed alien time-traveler.

"OK! Tea time over! Time to go to the football game!" Terri shouted, jumping to her feet and grabbing the mugs out of their hands.

"You're going to a _football game_?" Linda grinned.

"Y-yeess?" Terri answered cautiously as she pushed the Doctor toward the door.

"Wait!" Linda shouted as they headed out. "There is no way-no _stinkin' way_ \- I am letting my little Terri Bear go to her first actual, honest-to-God, American, football game without me as a witness." With that decided, she grabbed an atrocious maroon hat and dashed out the door behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

**And here's chapter 2! This is where the main changes take place. I'm going to sort of veer off into an entirely different story now, but I'll be keeping my characters roughly the same.**

The football game was… interesting, to say the least. Terri was honestly quite bored until halftime, when the entire stadium lit up like a supernova and the speakers began blaring the university's fight song, inexplicably in German and backed by a full orchestra-and a handful of tubas. The scoreboard gave each team ten million points, all while playing a soulful rendition of "My Heart Will Go on."

What followed the chaos was possibly one of the most disgusting things she or Linda had ever seen. (Well, perhaps not Linda. Some of her boyfriends… yikes.) Thousands upon thousands of previously invisible, but now offensively bright green blobs began dropping off every surface and person in the arena before coating the ground in a thick layer of wriggling leeches. Hundreds of horrified students and faculty ran from the scene...

Leaving Terri, Linda, and the Doctor to clean up the mess.

"So, you're just going to kill them?" Linda asked, pushing a broom along the football field. "That's not very _you_ , Doctor."

"Oh, no. They're just stunned! Once the TARDIS turns up I'll-" The Doctor stopped short. "Wait, what do you mean; not very me?" He whipped out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and narrowed his bespectacled eyes at the woman.

"Terri! Check section B again, will you? I think I just saw something squirming." Linda spun around and ran to her friend.

"On it!" Terri called from the stands.

"Oi!" The Doctor yelled indignantly, not at all happy with being ignored. "How do you know me?"

Linda rolled her eyes and gripped the Doctor's arm, pulling him further away from Terri; out of hearing distance. "You're honestly telling me you don't remember?" The Doctor merely replied with silence and a furrowed brow, drawing an exasperated sigh from the curly-haired woman. "Look, I know you've got a new face and all, but we've met before. Like, five times." Her face grew more and more concerned as the Doctor continued to look confused. "I guess it makes sense," she commented, deflating a bit "you were always a bit preoccupied. Saving the universe and all that."

The Time Lord quirked en eyebrow as he looked her over; curly brown hair, average height, curvy, and surprisingly unremarkable. At least, unremarkable in the sense that she was easy to forget when the universe was at stake. He could, however, vaguely remember her maroon jester's cap. "I do recall that hat." He made a face. "Though it's about four hundred years out-of-fashion."

Linda grinned, giggling. "Thanks, Terri made it. It's a spirit hat!" She danced in a circle, pumping her fist in the air. "Gooooo Jesters!"

The aforementioned girl's head popped up from behind a row of seats upon hearing her name. "I think that's the last of them!" she called, running up to them with a bag of leeches in her hand. She smiled and looked between the Doctor and her roommate. "So, aliens and the like, yeah?" She grinned, about seven clicks past excited and heading straight into jubilation. "I think I can get used to it."

The trio walked away from the field, the Doctor constantly scanning the area with his sonic screwdriver for signs of his TARDIS.

"There should be a slight," the Doctor paused to find the right word "shifting in temporal energy where the TARDIS has or is about to land. Only lasts a few minutes, so we have to catch her at the right time." Suddenly, he flicked a button on his screwdriver and frowned at it. "Huh."

Terri turned a curious gaze towards him. "What is it?" She couldn't help but be excited by all of his talk about temporal energy and time in general, having been obsessed with the properties of time and quantum mechanics for most of her life.

"Well, the continuity's all wrong. Time's natural fluidity has been replaced by a more rigid structure in the temporal particles. I've never seen time acting so stiff. No wonder the TARDIS crashed when we passed by." And worse yet, he refrained from telling them, it was getting more rigid by the second. Time was grinding against itself, like chunks of ice in a swiftly moving river.

Linda gave him a knowing look. "Your ship's gone, Doctor."

His face fell. For once, he was unable to speak.

She stopped, placing a hand on the Time Lord's shoulder. "There's some strange sort of phenomenon going on here," she explained "but I haven't been able to figure out what's causing it."

Terri glanced at the Doctor. Her heart broke in sympathy with his. He had such a joyful face; it was a crime to see it so distraught. "There are… things that sometimes end up in the Science Hall." She ignored a weary glance from Linda at this. "Maybe we could check there." The Doctor forced himself to look a bit cheerier at this, and the three made their way toward the oldest building on campus.

The Science Hall looked a bit more like an ancient torture chamber and, though many of the students would say it hadn't much changed since then, it had adapted well to the academic lifestyle. The stone halls were lined with bookshelves, desks, and huge holographic screens.

The Doctor paused at that observation, and took a moment to really take in his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, it seemed as if time had just given up all together. Technology from every century, and from every corner of the universe, filled the halls. In one corner, a 51st century communicator was being soldered to a 19th century turntable. Stranger yet, none of the students seemed to take notice of the discrepancies. He looked to Linda for an explanation.

The woman was silent, practically dragging Terri down the hall toward the stairs. They began their descent into the basement with Linda in the lead. She held a torch in one hand, with the other holding Terri's hand hostage in a vice-like grip.

"That's the place." She finally said, gesturing to an ancient wooden door. "Where everything gets dumped. We'll stay up here. You look for your ship."

"You aren't coming along?" The Doctor questioned. "But I thought you were the expert on this, being a Time Agent and all."

Linda sighed and scratched the back of her head, the metallic gleam of her vortex manipulator barely peeking out from her jacket sleeve. "I have a feeling you'd know a lot more about this than me, Doctor."

"Oh, now, don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you're brilliant. I mean, you've been here for years, haven't you? Much longer than maybe you'd like to admit." He quirked a knowing brow in the woman's direction.

Within three seconds, the both of them were behind the door, while Terri complained from the other side at being left behind.

"Alright. What do you want to know?" the Time Agent growled.

"I think I'll start with what I _do_ know." The Doctor mulled his way about the huge basement, hoping to find his TARDIS. "As we've already established, you're a Time Agent, and you've come here to fix up this 'phenomenon,' as you call it. But something changed. Normally the things that come through here are unremarkable—fairly run-of-the-mill space junk—but you found something, didn't you? Something that's taking you a good, long while to figure out. Something so precious, you had to install one of the most powerful perception filters I've ever seen just to keep the students from noticing it, or anything else, and to keep me from even remembering this place, even though—as you say—we've met here before." He paused long enough to fiddle with a Silurian musical instrument, which released a low whine. "So, now that we've established what I _do_ know, let's get to the point; what did you find? What was so important that you had to risk compromising your mission and allowing this 'phenomenon' to worsen so drastically?"

Linda stayed strong, standing her ground against the man, but her eyes betrayed her by flicking for just an instant toward the door.

That was all the information the Doctor needed. "I think we've spent quite enough time in here. Maybe we ought to check back in on your friend?" He held the door for her, grinning.

The blond pulled down sharply on the Doctor's tie, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "Don't you dare. She's not ready. She'll…" was all she could get out before the woman in question shuffled towards them.

"Did you find it?"

"Nope!" The Doctor quipped. "But I think I've found something far more interesting."


End file.
